The Resurrection of America Copy R

Copy R of Blake’s America has been known for many years only through
fragmentary accounts in sale catalogues and the more direct but dubious evidence offered by William Muir’s
facsimile. The original volume came to light in 1987, precisely one hundred years after the publication of
Muir’s lithographic imitation and, according to Blake Books, its last recorded appearance
in the marketplace.1↤ 1 G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) 106. Plate
numbers and copy designations follow Bentley’s enumerations. The return of copy
R to public notice permits a more accurate description of its characteristics and its history of ownership
than has heretofore been available in the literature on Blake’s illuminated books.

The volume in question was consigned by a Philadelphia collector for auction by Christie’s New
York in the summer of 1987. Christie’s and one of its bibliographic consultants at first believed the book
to be a lithographic facsimile. Seeking another opinion, the auction house sent the book by air express to
Thomas V. Lange, Associate Curator of Rare Books at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Some years
ago, Lange discovered the two lithographic plates in America copy B (Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York), thereby demonstrating his considerable expertise at discriminating between Blake’s
originals and forgeries or facsimiles.2↤ 2 See Lange,
“Two Forged Plates in America, copy B,” and Joseph Viscomi, “Facsimile or Forgery? An
Examination of America, Plates 4 and 9, Copy B,” Blake: An Illustrated
Quarterly 16 (1983): 212-23.
Lange immediately recognized the volume as an original illuminated book printed by Blake. Thanks to Lange’s
generosity, and the kind permission of Stephen Massey and Chris Coover of Christie’s Book Department, I was
allowed to inspect the book while it was at the Huntington.

I base my identification of the rediscovered America as copy R on its
relationship to Muir’s 1887 facsimile. The latter is printed on rectos only, whereas the original contains
eighteen plates on ten leaves, with plates 1 and 2 (frontispiece and title page) facing each other on separate
leaves and the remainder of the plates printed recto/verso.3↤ 3
Bentley, apparently relying on the facsimile, describes copy R as eighteen plates on eighteen leaves
(89). Further, the plates of the original exhibit a considerable range in blue and
green ink colors, and these are not followed closely in the facsimile. There is, however, one convincing type
of evidence linking Blake’s book and Muir’s. Almost all impressions from Blake’s relief-etched
copperplates have some “foul” inking—that is, droplets or smudges of ink in the etched whites or on
incompletely wiped relief borders. Some patterns of foul inking appear on more than one impression of a single
plate, but the vast majority of impressions have some unique features. It would be almost a statistical
impossibility for two copies of an illuminated book the length of America to have the same
accidental ink deposits throughout all their impressions. Muir’s facsimile does not reproduce every tiny
droplet in the rediscovered America, but more than enough smudges and dots are shared by the
two works to make it virtually certain that the original is the prototype Muir used for his partly
photographic, partly hand-drawn, lithographic copy. For example, the original frontispiece (illus. 1) shows
some rather messy over-inking that clogs the white interstices of black-line crosshatching just to the left of
the winged giant’s right leg. A very similar inking effect appears in Muir’s work. The smudges to the left
of the “A” of “AMERICA” on the title page, between the “E” and the “R,” and most other ink
deposits visible in illus. 2 are captured by Muir (see illus. 3). He also reproduces the shadow lines of foul
inking just inside the white cloud bearing the text on plate 10 (illus. 4).

The basic physical features of America copy R can be most conveniently set
forth under the following specific headings.

Plate States: Plate 13 is in the second state, with only one tail on the
serpent, as in copies A-D, H, M-Q. All other plates are in the published states appearing in all other
complete copies.

Paper: Ten leaves of wove paper trimmed to 36.4 × 25.5 cm. The fifth leaf,
bearing plates 7 and 8, shows the watermark “E & P” lower left (when viewed from the recto). Blake
used this paper, manufactured by Edmeads and Pine, in at least twenty other copies of his illuminated books,
including seven other copies of America (C-E, G-K [there is no J]). The leaves were cleaned
in this century (see Provenance, below) and apparently dried under heavy pressure. As a
result, there is no indication of the light platemarks almost always present in unwashed impressions of
Blake’s relief plates. The absence of these slight indentations, and the rather flat appearance of the inked
areas, probably contributed to the now-rejected opinion that the volume is a lithographic facsimile. The blank
recto of the frontispiece is slightly stained; the title leaf has a pinhole, now patched, left of the imprint.
The recto of the fifth leaf (pls. 7/8) shows slight foxing along the right margin. The sixth leaf (pls. 9/10)
has a short tear, about 1 cm. long, at the top edge with some loss of paper. A small circular stain mars the
flames lower right on plate 17; plate 18 is slightly foxed and bears a small stain over the “s” of
“bands” in the seventh line from the bottom.

Inking and Printing: Many plates show bold reticulations in the ink, much as in
the dark sky above the prone figures at the bottom of the title-page design (illus. 2). These maculated
patterns are probably the result of a very viscous ink, insufficiently dampened paper, or a combination of
both. The blue and green ink hues vary considerably from plate to plate, as listed below with other
information on inking variants.

Plate 1 (illus. 1). Blue.

Plate 2 (illus. 2.). Blue. The top left corner of the etched border and the dark sky between it
and the cloud outline are printed with no evidence of wiping. In some copies, this area is partly (e.g., N) or
completely (e.g., E) uninked. The border left of the figures above “PROPHECY,” printed
in copies I and N, does not appear in this copy.

Plates 3-8. Blue. The word “Preludium,” printed from a small separate plate
(e), appears above the upper design on plate 3. The final four lines of text on plate 4 have been masked in
printing, as in copies B-F, H-M, and a. Some letters on plate 5 are smudged, as though the plate moved
slightly in the press, and streaks in etched whites suggest an attempt to wipe away foul inking.

A few plates show small black ink spots, perhaps offset or rubbed off from another print when
still damp.
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The final plate bears several of these black, clustered spots, very similar to those on the same plate in copy
I (Huntington Library).

The variety of ink colors strongly suggests printing “per-plate,” not “per-copy.” By the
former term I mean the pulling of multiple impressions of the same plate, each printed with the same batch of
ink. Other plates were inked with other ink batches which, in some cases, did not closely match those used for
other plates. Evidence for this mode of production is also provided by the existence of multiple copies with
more-or-less the same ink color; for example, copies C-G, I-L, all described by Bentley as having at least
some plates printed in “greenish-Black” (88). Plate 10 in copy R was probably printed in the same
press-run with these other greenish-black or olive impressions. Thus, copy R would appear to be a composite of
at least three press-runs: blue, olive, and blue-green. In the early 1790s, Blake took multiple impressions of
each illuminated-book plate in anticipation of multiple sales. When these did not materialize, he changed in
the later 1790s to per-copy printing of each copy of an illuminated book as a unit, taking only one impression
from each plate to create a single volume.

Binding: Modern plum-red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, elaborately gilt
tooled and with green and black morocco inlays. Stamped in gilt on the upper front cover, “AMERICA/ A
PROPHECY/ WILLIAM BLAKE.” Stamped in gilt on the spine, “AMER-/ ICA,/ A/ PROP-/ HECY/ . . ./ WILL-/ IAM/
BLAKE.” Housed in a green cloth folding box, lettered in gilt on the spine, “AMERICA/ A/ PROPHECY/ -/
WILLIAM/ BLAKE.” The front free endpaper is followed by three fly-leaves, the first of which bears the
armorial bookplate of Christine Alexander Graham and (below) a clipping of lot 18 from the 1911 Anderson
auction catalogue (see Provenance, below). The three front fly-leaves and the three at the
end of the volume are variously watermarked “MBM,” “Ingres,” and “France.” The plates are bound
consecutively in order, 1 through 18. Foliated in pencil, probably by a binder, 1-10, top right of rectos
(including the blank recto of the frontispiece facing the title page). Another pencil number on leaf 8 recto
(pl. 13) has been partly erased and is illegible. There is also fragmentary evidence of a pencil inscription,
almost completely erased, on the blank verso of the title page. A pencil squiggle below might be the number 2
or 7. None of these pencil inscriptions can be attributed to Blake.

Hand Tinting: This copy is properly described as uncolored,4↤ 4 Bentley (89)
indicates that copy R “is water-coloured by Blake or by his wife” and includes notes on its coloring in
his plate by plate descriptions. The error apparently resulted from confusing Muir’s monochrome facsimile of
copy R with his colored facsimile, printed from the same lithographic plates but tinted in imitation of copy
A. but it does show a limited amount of tinting in
the colors of the printing inks, probably executed to compensate for poor printing of small details. The hand
tinting I have definitely identified as such is as follows:

Plate 3. Branch upper right, both ends of the worm at the bottom, and part of the vegetation
below the bound youth above the text painted in by hand.

Plate 5. Some hand work in blue on the letters of “PROPHECY.”

Plate 8. Hand tinting along the outline of the skull and on both shoulders of the seated man.

Christie’s 1987 auction catalogue (see Provenance, below) includes notes on
several other spots of hand tinting. I am less certain of these, except for some strengthening of letters in
the text, but the catalogue descriptions deserve recording here:

Plate 3. “Lightly strengthened in pen and ink by Blake in . . . the figures at top . . . and
the calligraphic verses.”

Plate 4. “Lightly strengthened . . . in a few places (several letters in the verses, the tree
roots at bottom).”

Plate 6. “Lightly strengthened . . . in a number of places (the nose of the wyvern, many of the
initial capitals in the calligraphic verses, the rocks at bottom).”

3. William Muir.
Facsimile of Blake’s America, 1887. Lithographic reproduction of the
title page, printed in green and hand-tinted in the same color. 22.3 × 16 cm. Essick collection.

Plate 7. “Lightly strengthened . . . in a few places (the soaring figures’ flowing hair, one
leg of the right-hand figure).”

Plate 11. “Lightly strengthened . . . in a few places (a couple of the initial capitals in the
calligraphic verses, a few other letters).”

Plate 12. “Lightly strengthened . . . in a very few places (several flame tongues at far right
center, tail of one letter of calligraphic verses).”

Plate 16. “Lightly strengthened . . . in several places (the clouds and extended fingers of
right-hand figure, a few letters in the calligraphic verses).”

Provenance: The first published reference to the volume is its appearance in
the catalogue for the London auction of works from the collection of George Smith, Christie’s, 1 April 1880,
lot 164 (£31.10s. to the book-dealer Bernard Quaritch).5↤ 5 Bentley (106) where the only other recorded stage in the sales history
of the volume is its appearance in Quaritch’s 1887 catalogue. Quaritch offered the book for sale in his advertising flyer of
two leaves, entitled William Blake’s Original Drawings and dated May 1885. On page 2,
without an item number, copy R is briefly described as “18 designs [i.e., plates] printed in blue, half
bound green morocco, gilt edges,” and priced at £36. The same entry appears in Quaritch’s reissue of the
flyer, dated November 1886. This advertisement also notes (page 4) that Muir’s facsimile of
America is “in preparation.” Copy R next appears in Quaritch’s General
Catalogue of Books, 1887, item 10,251, with the same description and price as the earlier flyers. The
entry is repeated for a final time in Quaritch’s catalogue of February 1891, item 93. The volume was
probably sold before January 1895, for it is not included in the extensive Blake offerings in Quaritch’s
catalogue of that date. The purchaser was the great Blake collector William A. White of Brooklyn, New York,
who also owned uncolored copy E and colored copy M of America. White lent copy R anonymously
to the Grolier Club exhibition of 1905, no. 18 in the catalogue. The book is there described as “trimmed”
to “14½ × 10⅛ inches” (36.8 × 25.7 cm.—just a few millimeters larger than the present dimensions),
“printed in blue ink,” watermarked “E P” (i.e., E & P), and “bound” and “gilt.” Copy R
changed hands when it was sold in New York “from the important Private Library of a Brooklyn Collector”
(no doubt White), Anderson Auction Company, 27 October 1911, lot 18, “half dark green morocco, gilt edges”
($625, according to a priced copy of the catalogue in the Huntington Library). The auction catalogue includes
a reproduction of the America title page. The patterns of foul inking in this plate clearly
identify the volume in the auction as copy R, and thus provide the best evidence for its earlier ownership by
White. This illustration also reveals a large stain below the “O” of
“PROPHECY,” now no longer present. The plate must have been cleaned sometime after 1911. Since
the title page is on paper of

the same white hue as all others in copy R, they too must have been washed and pressed dry at about the same
time.

I have found no record of the book’s purchaser at the 1911 auction, but either at the sale or
soon thereafter it was acquired by Christine Alexander Graham of Maryland, who also owned copy A of
Songs of Innocence between 1912 and 1943 (Bentley, 404). Copy R was very probably cleaned,
slightly cut down (thereby removing the gilt edges), and rebound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe shortly after
the 1911 auction. The volume passed by inheritance to the late Margaret M. Sullivan of Philadelphia. Her
brother, acting on behalf of Sullivan’s estate, brought copy R to Christie’s in 1987.

Christie’s New York placed the book in its auction of 13 November 1987, lot 46. The very
detailed and accurate description in the catalogue is accompanied by color reproductions of the frontispiece,
title page, and plate
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10.6↤ 6 The only obvious error is in the description of plate 5 as having “lines 38-41 . . . masked
by Blake in printing.” These lines are masked on plate 4.America was by far the most important work in the auction, as indicated by the brave
estimate of $125,000 to $175,000 and the color reproduction of the upper design and seven lines of text from
plate 10 on the catalogue cover. Bidding opened at $80,000 and did not stop until reaching $160,000. With the
addition of the 10% purchaser’s premium paid to the house, America achieved the new
auction record for any illuminated book of $176,000. (The previous record of £77,000—then about
$158,600—was set by copy D of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, sold at Christie’s
London in June 1979.) The buyer was the London print dealer Libby Howie, who in December 1986 purchased at
auction the upper design only from Blake’s “Ecchoing Green” for an anonymous collector.
America copy R is probably destined for the same collection. I will report any further
information I can obtain about the volume in my annual sales reviews in this journal.

The provenance of America copy R affects the previously recorded history of
copy D, now at Princeton University. Bentley (101), citing “Keynes & Wolf” as his authority,7↤ 7 Geoffrey Keynes and Edwin Wolf
2nd, William Blake’s Illuminated Books: A Census (New York: Grolier Club, 1953)
45. states that copy D was acquired by W. A. White
“in 1891,” lent to the Grolier Club’s 1905 exhibition, no. 18, and sold at Anderson’s on 27 October
1911, lot 18. Since this last point is demonstrably not true, and since copy R was lot 18 in the 1911 auction,
there is no documentary evidence that White ever owned copy D. Unless Keynes and Wolf had some (unstated)
evidence about White’s purchase of the book in 1891, we are left with a gap in the provenance of copy D
between its sale at Sotheby’s London in 1888 and its sale from the Cortlandt Bishop collection at the
American Art Association, New York, in 1938.

The at least temporary resurrection of America copy R is a most satisfying
event in the recovery of Blake’s artistic legacy. It gives one hope that other treasures may someday arise
from the caverns of history’s grave and find again an appreciative audience.

Print Edition

Publisher

Department of English, University of Rochester

Rochester, NY, USA

Editors

Morris Eaves

Morton D. Paley

Managing Editor

Patricia Neill

Bibliographer

D.W. Dörrbecker

Review Editor

Nelson Hilton

Associate Editor for Great Britain

David Worrall

Contributors

Martin Butlin

Jackie Di Salvo

Morris Eaves

Robert N. Essick

George Goyder

Nelson Hilton

Inge Jonsson

Morton D. Paley

Donald H. Reiman

David Simpson

Tadeusz Sławek

Sheila A. Spector

David H. Weinglass

Digital Edition

Editors:

Morris Eaves, University of Rochester

Robert Essick, University of California, Riverside

Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Manager

Joe Fletcher

Technical Editor

Michael Fox

Previous Project Manager and Technical Editor

William Shaw

Project Director

Adam McCune

Project Coordinator, UNC:

Natasha Smith, Carolina Digital Library and Archives

Project Coordinator, University of Rochester:

Sarah Jones

Scanning:

UNC Digital Production Center

XML Encoding:

Apex CoVantage

Additional Transcription:

Adam McCune

Jennifer Park

Emendations:

Rachael Isom

Mary Learner

Adam McCune

Ashley Reed

Jennifer Park

Scott Robinson

XSLT Development:

Adam McCune

Joseph Ryan

William Shaw

PHP and Solr Development:

Michael Fox

Adam McCune

Project Assistants:

Lauren Cameron,

Rachael Isom,

Mary Learner,

Jennifer Park,

Ashley Reed,

Adair Rispoli,

Scott Robinson

Sponsors

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and the University of Rochester